


Pygmalion

by OnYourMark



Category: White Collar
Genre: Other, Sex with statues!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-07
Updated: 2010-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:20:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnYourMark/pseuds/OnYourMark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal <i>really</i> loves his work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pygmalion

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the White Collar kinkmeme, polished up and posted here. [Prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/collarkink/1093.html?thread=670277#t670277): Neal/Statue. Set during 1x14.

There is a ritual in any work of creation that all artists must obey -- the stretch and sizing of canvas, the mix of paint, the casting of metals. It's no different for clay, and in some ways Neal likes clay best, these days. It's solid, textured, and it warms when he touches it, almost like flesh would.

He has been alone in his body a very long time.

The armature is in place, its hidden treasure-cache of safe-cracking tools wrapped securely in plastic against the warm moisture of the clay. That itself goes on in blocks and rolls over the armature, an amorphous shape that means nothing, signifies nothing, until Neal puts his hands and his tools to it for the first time.

Michaelangelo said that carving is easy; you just go down to the skin and then stop. Neal wants desperately to touch the skin of di Vulcano, his chosen gift to the Italian Consulate. He wants to dig some memory of Fancelli out of the clay, smooth his hand over Vulcan, the god of the forge. The pun is pleasing.

He works, for preference, barefoot and shirtless, because it means he knows where his body is, where his own skin ends. When he sweats through the work and his muscles cramp from precise movements, he knows his measure. This will be so beautiful, if he can only find the skin. He has to be patient -- he has to mimic the way Fancelli worked, the strokes against the clay, adding some here and cutting it away there, until it begins to feel _right_. It's difficult to be patient, though, with di Vulcano's twisted body and sorrowful face so temptingly close.

"It looks like the real thing," Alex tells him, while he concentrates on the sculpture and not on the way sometimes looking at her makes his stomach tighten. Old desire never dies away completely, but he's so close to Kate now too and he can be good for a little while longer.

"Don't let it fool you," he tells Alex. He won't let the clay fool him, either; it's not true flesh, though it still feels like it when he lays a hand across the damp warmth where he's been working.

When Alex leaves he goes back to the clay, strips off the shirt he put on while she was there, and walks around it in circles, inspecting, crouching to look up, lowering the platform it's resting on so he can look down. He smooths a burr of clay across Vulcan's neck, digs a small furrow in the small of his back and brushes it flat with his thumb.

He could be touching a lover; he could be touching anyone. A lover, a friend, someone he can never have, the clay can be anything. And the clay isn't anyone, so this isn't...forbidden, this touch. The clay obeys him, loves him. It can't respond, of course, but if he were to touch it, it could never push him away, either.

He runs a hand lightly over Vulcan's shoulder, admiring his work. Mozzie has, from time to time and in momentary anger, diagnosed Neal as a narcissist, but Neal is not in love with himself. He loves what he makes, because once they're perfect, once they're finished, they become something more than what he made them.

Neal smiles. Michaelangelo also said, though they don't teach _this_ in art classes, that even the divine does not disdain male consorts. Vulcan is not an unlikely partner; his body is strong, thighs and arms muscular, and the clay is smooth under Neal's hands.

He doesn't dare touch too closely, afraid of ruining the line or of leaving fingerprints in the clay, but he can slide his left hand over the statue's body, right resting tight against his stomach, sliding into the dip between waist and thigh as his fingers follow the same line in Vulcan's outstretched leg. He edges his pants off and steps closer, inhaling the sweet-earth smell of drying clay, and cups his hand around his cock, already hard. This is almost touch and almost flesh, it will have to be enough --

He groans, low, mouth bare inches from Vulcan's shoulder, wanting suddenly to grip and pull, dig his fingers into the clay, resisting because so much depends on this. He can't ruin it now but he wants, oh he wants so badly to press his face into the curve of the statue's throat.

He settles for leaning forward just slightly, careful not to grip the soft clay for balance, and rubbing the head of his cock gently along the solid bulge of the statue's thigh. That's good, that's so close to real -- he presses in again, a little more roughly, the clay can take it and anyway he's Neal Caffrey, he can fix it if it's broken and nobody will ever know. He grunts and ruts against it, head bent, soft noises in the dark.

The statue can't push him away, run from him, be _disappointed_ in him, the smooth clay is leaving little wet streaks on his skin, god, he's hard, he wants to touch if he can't be touched -- he made this and now it's more, now it lives in the world and soon others will see it, but tonight it's still his. It's still his and if he closes his eyes and thrusts just right against it, it _will_ fool him.

He comes with a low moan, feeling like the orgasm's being ripped out of him by the pull of clay against his skin. He's breathing hard, sweating, but his hand hasn't left a mark on Vulcan's shoulder. He looks down; the damage to the clay's not too bad, and really most of the problem is the come sliding slowly down Vulcan's hip, leaving darker clay where the moisture is seeping in.

He tilts his head and presses gently with his palm. Some of it will sink into the clay and stay there, he thinks. When the Italians fuss over Chiarissimo Fancelli's study of the statua di Vulcano, they won't know a part of him is rubbed into the shape of it.

There's a paint rag nearby and he cleans Vulcan off with it, reworking all the little minor damages to it before he dampens the rag and cleans himself off, drying clay flaking off his skin roughly, cock and hands and some on his own thigh.

Neal puts his clothing back on, does one last check to be sure everything is perfect, and bends to lay a single light kiss on Vulcan's shoulder before he goes to bed.


End file.
